There’s a fine line between “Only this girl realizes how cool I am” and “There’s no way that should make anyone attracted to me.”

It’s a given that bar hostesses in Japan have to be easy on the eyes, and plenty of customers feel a stirring in their loins while sipping premium-priced drinks in the company of a lovely lady. It’s putting warmth in the customer’s heart, though, that earns repeat business.

Because of that, a skilled hostess will tailor her conversational style to vigorously stroke her customer’s ego. At nearly every opportunity, she’ll show him that his jokes are fresh and funny, his earnest statements are wise revelations, and everything about him is attractive and admirable.

Deep down inside, most customers realize that the complements they’re being showered with probably aren’t 100-percent genuine, but as long as the hostess drips just enough of her honey to make it seem like the individual expressions of admiration could be true, customers are happy to go along on the fun fantasy ride. However, on a recent outing to a “girls bar” (a kind of hostess bar where the hostesses themselves pour drinks at a counter), the hostess took things a step too far and snapped Japanese Twitter user @kaibara_uuu right out of the “Wait, I think this girl might really like me” trance.

https://twitter.com/kaibara_uuu/status/1214888057335242752

“It’s thrilling how the girls at a girls bar will say everything about you is so great. But when one of them told me ‘Oh, wow, do you have astigmatism? Astigmatism is so cute!’ it freaked me out and I went home.”

For those lucky enough not to have to deal with astigmatism or know what it means, it’s a condition where an abnormal shape of the lens of the eye or the cornea makes it difficult to properly focus, resulting in blurred vision that requires glasses, contacts, or surgery to correct. Depending on the severity, it’s an inconvenience at best and a serious problem at worst, and while it’d be one thing if the hostess had been saying @kaibara_uuu’s glasses or aesthetically altering contact lenses looked cute, she was expressing her attraction to the visual impairment itself.

Other Twitter users were also baffled by the compliment.

“That’s an amazingly vague compliment.”
“She could have at least said ‘So you see the world in a soft focus. That’s so wonderful!’ or something like that.”
“Hostesses’ ability to call everything ‘cute’ is powered by their customers’ money.”
“Love is blind, and you’re astigmatic.”
“I’m far-sighted. Would I get a compliment too?”
“You got freaked out and went home? That’s so CUTE!”

All the same, @kaibara_uuu’s story still had other people leaving comments like “Man, I haven’t been to a girls bar in so long, but now I wanna go again,” and “Even after reading this, I still want to go to a girls bar next time I have some extra cash,” so apparently some customers are indeed happy to take any and all compliments their hostess is serving.

Source: Twitter/@kaibara_uuu via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Pakutaso
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Casey has astigmatism, and you can tell him how cute that is by following him on Twitter.